


The Best Medicine is the Honest Truth

by jackabee



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ambiguous Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Comes with the Hanahaki tho, F/M, Flayn is meddling, Hanahaki Disease, Lots of Tea Time, Manuela is a Good Hecking Friend, Nabateans cough up flowers when they can't express emotions, Recruit Every Last One of Them, Seteth wants to hold hands A Lot, Slight Emeto, byleth is oblivious, less about unrequited love and more about intense emotion, slight body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 10:58:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20947223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jackabee/pseuds/jackabee
Summary: Daisies symbolize innocence, purity, and new beginnings. Their flower meaning is "loyal love" or "I'll never tell". They're common enough in the wild that Garreg Mach Monestary's greenhouse doesn't grow them, but they have to be somebody's favorite flower, right?ORByleth was already learning How Emotions Work, but it takes fusing with Sothis fully to learn what love can be. If only it didn't have to come by way of a serious Nabatean malady.





	The Best Medicine is the Honest Truth

**Author's Note:**

> I...really love this game...and Seteth, and Flayn, and the Setleth family, and I needed some soft feelings to juxtapose with horrific made up diseases. I should be in bed but instead I'm indulging myself, I hope you enjoy~

The schooled expression of icy indifference. The enunciated, thinly-veiled distrust that hung from every word. The criticism, the scrutiny. If she were someone else, Byleth might resent the obvious, sheathed hostility that Seteth had greeted her with from the moment they met before the Archbishop. If she were honest, though? Her first impression of him was that of mutual understanding. To him, she was an unknown variable, a potential threat. If she were to face such a thing on the battlefield, she too would be guarded and cautious. It was a logical reaction, and for that, Byleth could respect Seteth enough to speak to him when spoken to, and to take her new position seriously.

After all, Byleth wasn’t stupid. A young mercenary who emerged from nowhere, no matter her father’s reputation, was in no way qualified to be a professor of battle and warfare, especially not to the nobility of three nations.

Sothis used to tut and roll her eyes at such conclusions. _Shall I be offended for both of us by such a reception_, she would whisper in Byleth’s mind, _or will you pause to take a moment and consider how rude it is to be contemptful of a colleague?_

Every time, Byleth would mutter the same response under her breath. “I could be offended and cause trouble, or I could do my job and keep my own guard up.” If she allowed herself something petty like that, who knows what else could get to her, and her father had insisted she be wary of the church – of Lady Rhea. A rational outlook would keep them both alive.

She had thought that, and believed that, and held onto that for as long as she had, but even the Ashen Demon had her limits.

It started, truly, with the students. Not just the ones from her own class, but all of them – each was so different, so strange, young enough or just old enough to be her own peers yet looking to her as a leader. It came slowly over the months – from the free days where she would coax Bernadetta out of her room to cook together, the shrinking violet blooming under Byleth’s quiet patience; from the reluctant tea times with Felix when she could indulge in conversations about the various clans of roaming monastery cats in the same breath as sword techniques; from convincing Hilda over sweets in the dining hall that putting in a touch of effort with Marianne at the stables on Saturdays would end up worth the work; from sitting on the edge of the dock with Flayn, each with a fishing pole, watching their quarry spin and spool beneath them under the gentle and glittering waves of the pond – slowly, from these things, came on a gentle fondness for the students of Garreg Mach. The fondness gave way to concern when their spirits flagged, when their smiles strained or were wound too tight to be genuine in response to the stressful events brought on by new missions. The concern gave way to care when they lagged on the battlefield, time always wound back again and again to when they were still whole and unharmed, and she could direct them anew.

She loved them long before the ball during the Ethereal Moon, but that was when she felt it swell the most in her still heart. When the promise was made for five years hence, and she thought of all her students could grow to be in such time. That surge of pride buoyed her through most of the night, letting her dance until she was truly too tired to go on for a moment longer.

That night was the crack in her armor, and the rapidly cooling weight of her father’s body was what shattered her defenses. Even if all the world saw was her stony silence and an endless stream of tears, every wall within her had crumbled to ruins, and emotion thundered through her veins with a pain she had never known. Sothis had held her even though her body of light and thought could not offer the comfort of touch. When Byleth couldn’t breathe through the lump in her throat, when her pillow was soaked through with stinging tears, the strange woman in her mind put aside her usually petulant and flippant attitude, offering companionship and silent understanding.

In a way, Sothis had been Byleth’s first true friend. Even if she shared the name of the goddess of Fodlan – even if she _was_ the goddess of Fodlan – that was always how Byleth would think of her.

Oddly enough, it was during this time that Sothis would help encourage her back into the world. Gently, with reminders that Byleth needed to eat and to bathe and to host lectures, that she had become too entrenched in her position to hide away in her little dorm. And when her students had been attended to, when Byleth was left to wander the monastery and could no longer stand at the headstone that bore her father’s name, her feet led her to, of all people, Seteth.

He had softened when Byleth and her students had rescued Flayn from the clutches of the Death Knight. While still the fretting hen of a brother (_father_, she reminded herself, once they had taken that mission to the Rhodos Coast), he had become more receptive to Byleth’s attempts at conversation. Why, after catching the Teautates Herring for Flayn in the fishing tournament, he even agreed to take tea with her. Her choice of Four Spice Blend had been a lucky chance, and though Seteth was not nearly as interested in the monastery cats as she, the experience had been…positive. He no longer circled her like a predator who had invaded his territory, and it was a change that she found herself appreciating.

While her grief was not fitting for tea time conversation, Seteth would indulge her need to forget, to focus on something else, and they would spar. He taught her the lance, and the axe, and a bit of flying theory, and it wore her out and let her sleep without dreams at night, and for that Byleth was grateful.

Oh, but how long could it have gone on? The month had sped by quickly, and with it had come Solon and Monica (Kronya, her name was Kronya, Byleth would not forget it for as long as she lived) and the dark magic and the endless abyss. And with it had gone her first true friend. For Byleth to live, Sothis must cease to be.  
And with that came power, and loneliness, and every feeling, every sensation became amplified by one thousand fold. She became lightning in a bottle and split the sky in two, and everything from that moment shifted.

Byleth was still herself, and just herself. Her thoughts had not changed, her beliefs and convictions the same as ever, but with the change in her hair and eyes, the raw power in her body and the ease from which magic could now flow from her fingertips as if it had waited only for that push…it frightened some of the students, and put others in a state of awe. Rhea looked at her as if she held the world. All Byleth wanted was her friend back.

The Holy Tomb had become a blur of confusion in her memory, and the Flame Emperor’s unmasking to reveal too-light hair and those sharp violet eyes of Edelgard von Hresvelg had spun everything Byleth had known into chaos. She remembers two weeks of preparations, of intense study and training, of tension and fear, and…a mission.

Seteth had begun to prepare for the upcoming invasion with Byleth and her students, whether out of a desire to assist or to provide further protection for Flayn, she did not know and did not ask. Perhaps they were all jumping at shadows, but when a particularly ruthless swarm of bandits began to run amok on the outskirts of Garreg Mach, Byleth’s class was the group set out to deal with them as swiftly as possible. Seteth accompanied her, the Spear of Assal clutched in one hand while the other held the reigns of his wyvern as it dove and darted across the battlefield. When she had led three bandits away from the main group of students, she was already reeling from the effects of a Divine Pulse. Leonie had been ruthlessly cut down by a pincer attack, and Mercedes could not stem the bleeding while a third towered over her turned back – it was risky, but it was the only way Byleth could think to ensure their survival. She had to draw them to her and take them as they came, no matter what, even if she was left tottering on the edge of the last of her strength…

She remembers the rush of wings on the wind, the blink of a shadow, the gleam of a spear tip as Seteth came down on the final bandit – 

“JUDGEMENT IS PASSED!”

– She remembers blood, hot and bright, spattering onto the grass and onto the wyvern and onto Seteth, his green eyes bright with fury, his teeth grit with the effort. In that moment, Byleth felt something completely foreign unfurling within her, as if she had experienced the promise of death that the Archbishop’s stern advisor had promised should she cross the faith he defended. So different from the man who took spiced tea in the garden, who spoke evenly to students in need of guidance and who would kneel to his daughter should she ask it of him. So different, and yet, it melded into him without trouble, a ruthlessness where it mattered that had always resided in his soul.

If they had only been granted more time before the Adrestrian Empire came to their doorstep. If there had only been time to breathe before Byleth found herself free-falling into a craggy canyon, the incredible white beast whose growling voice echoed like Rhea’s screaming in agony far above. If only…

Ah, but that was the trick, wasn’t it? There would be more time – Byleth would simply have to wait for it.

~*~

Within those first few weeks after she had awoken and emerged from her strange and intense slumber, Byleth began to develop a cough. When she explained to Manuela the circumstances of her waking, her fellow professor sighed and shook her head in exasperation. “Well no wonder you aren’t feeling well,” she said, parsing through what remained of her medicine cabinet, “You were soaked to the bone, in the river, during the Ethereal Moon! It’s a miracle you didn’t catch hypothermia, Byleth, dear.” After scanning the faded labels of several bottles and jars, Manuela finally offered her a jar of honey mixed with herbs. “I’m afraid my stock isn’t quite as in date as I’d like, or I’d give you something stronger, but…some of this in your tea should help, until I can get some proper medicine.” When Byleth made to take the jar, Manuela clasped her other hand over hers, holding it gently and looking Byleth in the eye.

“Promise me that you’ll use it,” she said, her voice soft with worry. “We only just got you back, and if we’re really going to find Lady Rhea and fight back against the Empire, we’re going to need you. Take care of yourself.”

Manuela’s tenderness and sincerity no longer surprised Byleth, but it was still as touching as ever. “I will.”

Tea was in short supply, but Manuela, in all her meddlesome worry, must have let slip to the gathered former students that their beloved professor was not feeling her best, for they began to drop by her old dorm room with caches of their own favored blends, offering to catch her up on all the gossip and news she had missed in the past five years. It was sweet, in a way, and as good an excuse as any to use the honey, but for all the tea she drank, Byleth’s cough did not seem to abate. If anything, afterwards, she found herself coughing more, and harder, especially if the tea was a floral blend. Try as she might to stifle the hoarse sound, her body was racked with coughing, to the point where she began to taste blood at the back of her throat.

One thing was certain: Byleth was ill. But she would be damned to dance barefoot in Ailell before she let anyone know she wasn’t getting any better. The students needed her. The Knights of Seiros needed her. Everyone needed her, no matter how tight her chest felt or how hard it was to keep from spasming when all she wanted to do was cough and spit out whatever phlegm or blood was trying to force its way out.

So, she hid it. She hid it, and it only felt worse, like something writhing inside of her lungs, something rustling and fluttering with every deep breath that became more and more difficult to draw. It only intensified as the war crept toward its end, to the point where she couldn’t bear to go out and fight bandits or stray Demonic Beasts when they had the time. She struggled not to collapse on the battlefield as they tore their way into Empire territory.

And all along, Seteth was at her side.

In a way, somehow, him being there made her chest hurt worse, but she could not escape him. Rhea had appointed her the leader of the church in her absence, and as such, Seteth was there to advise her where it was needed – in reconstruction efforts, during war councils, even in daily matters. Even with that pain, Byleth did not want to part from him. As dodgy as he had been with what he claimed was the truth of her strange circumstance, part of her knew she could trust him, and during those quiet nights in the dining hall when they took a late dinner to discuss some matter or another, and Flayn joined them, something warm took root in her just from the moment of being together as a threesome, when Flayn looked between them with sparkling eyes and confided that she felt as if they were a family, eating dinner together this way. Seteth would always clear his throat and concur, and Byleth would find herself smiling, and she did not want the moment to pass, even if it meant her chest would burst from this unrelenting cough.

It was during an odd tea time with Flayn, of all people, when Byleth finally learned of what afflicted her. Half of her cup had been filled with the remainder of Manuela’s prescription honey, and the Sweet Apple Blend it mixed with was sluggish and not as apple-y as it ought to be. Something Flayn mentioned about the pond made Byleth laugh, the expression from her more a soft snort than the lyrical sound produced by others, but it was enough that she felt a distinct shift in her chest, one she couldn’t push down, that would not be stopped. She barely heard Flayn cry out as she doubled over, a hand clasped tightly over her mouth, nearly gagging as something was pushed up through her throat, into her palm along with the distinct copper taste of blood.

It was – soft, wet and crinkly and organic, in a way that wasn’t associated with flesh and blood. When Byleth pulled her hand away, her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open in shock.

It was a daisy. Bloody and crumpled, but Byleth could recognize the wildflower from her short youth, impassively picking the buds for her father and threading their stems into his hair as he laughed and carried her on his shoulders. The sight of it made Flayn drop to her knees before her.

“Professor,” she said, looking at Byleth with dewy eyes, “Have…have you been hiding this from us?”

So devastated, so heartbroken was Flayn that Byleth couldn’t find it within her to lie. “I…was only hiding the cough,” she said, “This is…new.”

It’s new. It’s terrifying. What in all the world is happening to her?

Flayn’s hands are shaking as she takes Byleth’s, closing it around the flower. “Do, um. Do you recall, how I once said…when you changed, and your hair and eyes became like mine…that you and I were special in the same way?”

“…Yes.”

“I am afraid this is part of that.” The fear in Flayn’s entire being is distressing enough, but her voice held a shaken quality that Byleth never wanted to hear again. “When those of us who are special in this way…sometimes, we find ourselves with feelings we cannot explain. Those feelings, if not examined…if not spoken of with someone else…they take root in us and bloom, and it hurts us. If never expressed…” She shakes her head, tears beginning to spill from the corners of her eyes. “My brother should have warned you of this…we must tell him immediately!”

All at once, Byleth felt the world shift underneath her. “W-What? Why do we…”

“It is his responsibility as – as the eldest of us! And Lady Rhea is not here to explain it, either!” A sudden fury seemed to fill Flayn, and she sniffed as she clamored to her feet, pulling Byleth with her. “He can fix it, I know he can!”

While not known for her strength, Flayn can be incredibly persistent when her mind is put to something, and that is how she half pulled, half dragged her dear professor across the monastery and up to the second floor, throwing open the door to Seteth’s office without so much as a knock. He was there, of course, back turned to the door, hunched over something – he straightened immediately at their entrance, and Byleth’s eyes catch something drop to the floor. His face is pale.

“Fla – Profes – what is the meaning of-” Seteth choked on his sentence as Flayn took Byleth’s hand and opened her palm, revealing the bloody daisy. If he were a man of weaker constitution, he might have fainted.

“There are things you ought to discuss with our dear Professor, _Brother_,” Flayn said. Her pout and drawn brow would have been cute, if the situation did not seem so dire to her. “If she is as much kin as you say she is, then should she not be warned of what ailments could befall her? It wounds me to think she has been suffering so!”

Seteth let out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “Goddess above – Flayn, if this is some sort of joke-”

“I would not joke about such a thing!” With one more heartbroken look at Byleth, Flayn made for the door. “Please help her, Brother! I do not know what I can do at this point, but I know you can help!”

“Flayn, wait-”

But as soon as Seteth reached out, the door closed with a snap, and the two adults could hear Flayn’s footsteps pitter-patter away.

There was silence, for a moment. Byleth felt her chest tighten, and she swallowed hard.

“Seteth.” She held the flower towards him. “I didn’t mean to distress her. It just…happened, while we were having tea.”

Seteth swore under his breath, shaking his head. “I am sorry – truly, I am. This must be a trying ordeal for you, and I…” He closed his eyes and sighed. “I wish it were Rhea giving you this talk, rather than myself. As much as I promise to tell you the truth, so much of it depends on what she knows. I honestly did not think such an affliction would manifest in you.”

Her legs felt weak. She should sit, yet she could not find it in her to move.

“Flayn said…it is because of how she and I are special. Is that true?”

Seteth nodded. He bent down behind his desk, retrieving what he had dropped – a handkerchief, crumpled around something and dotted with blood. When he opened it, Byleth could see a clump of stained petals.

“…I have not experienced this in many years,” He said at last. His eyes were far away and mournful. “Not since I lost my late wife, and I was sick with grief for all the things I could never tell her.”

Byleth lowered her head in respect, but curiosity prickled as badly as her cough at the back of her throat. “Why has it come to you again?”

He sighed, folding the handkerchief so the petals were obscured from view. “Is it something you truly wish to hear?” Seteth asked.

“Flayn mentioned…something about expressing our feelings. That it should help.”

“That is the only cure, yes, but…I would not share were you unwilling to listen.”

The writhing tugged at Byleth’s insides again. “I would very much like to listen, if you are willing to share.”

Again, silence. Seteth ran both hands through his hair, pressing them against where his ears would be. He sat in his desk chair, eyes lingering at the folded handkerchief, and Byleth found it in her to follow suit, sitting down at last.

“I…I find myself thinking about my wife, lately,” he began, “I wonder…if she would be unhappy with me for…certain thoughts. If she would think I was betraying her.”

A memory of the Rhodos Coast washes back to Byleth like the sweeping tide, of the sadness tinged in Seteth’s eyes as he looked upon the monument to Saint Cichol. “Why would you betray her?”

He laughed, once, the sound soft and almost sheepish. “I’ve…grown to care for someone. Deeply, and with all my heart. I suppose I would feel worse, if Flayn learned of my feelings for this person and resented me for it, but part of me…at the very least, part of me suspects she might even approve.” He manages a gentle glance to the door. “But with the war, and with the efforts to find Rhea, I cannot simply indulge in such a thing. I do not even know if they might feel the same in return, and I would be loathe to force the issue.”

An odd tingling danced along Byleth’s nerves. It was almost as if she…knew, somehow, who Seteth was referring to, but her mind would not allow her to pass through some barrier to that knowledge, not without the right key. Still, she noticed a distinct shift in Seteth’s breathing once his words were said. He inhaled, deeply, and when he exhaled it was as if the creeping burdens of his words had made his pain disappear. Would that happen to her? Could she finally be rid of this painful, terrifying cough?

Byleth sat up a little straighter. “I have been thinking about someone, too,” she said. Her eyes were downcast, and she missed how the usual serious lines in Seteth’s brow seemed to smooth out in surprise. “Their presence is something I’ve come to want beside me. Something I need. Not…mm.” She put a hand to her chin. “I have known many emotions, though I know I don’t…emote, not very well. I’m aware of that. But this is something I’ve never felt before. It’s…” She could almost feel another cough coming up, a daisy trying to burst into bloom in her throat. “…It is warm,” she settled on, “and comfortable. As if I am at home. And that isn’t something I’ve felt since my father…but, it’s stronger than that. This person…I’ve respected them since we first met, and gotten to know them, seen…many sides to them. And…for the first time, out of all the people I have met in my life, I want to know all of them. I want to be able to…make them smile.”

When she looked up, she could see Seteth’s cheeks had gone quite red, though his smile was fond, almost like someone learned in the ways of the world realizing that a young friend has found something precious at long last. “In my experience,” he said, “that feeling is, in a way, a form of love.”

Love? Truly? Her father’s words echoed in her mind, and she could almost feel the shape of her mother’s silver ring impressed into her palm, as if she was five years in the past and clutching it like a lifeline while Sothis lingered over her and tried to brush her ethereal fingers through Byleth’s bangs. If this was how love felt, she thought, her breath coming to her fully and clearly at last…

Well. With the end of the war in sight, when Fodlan comes into a new dawn, she would need to ask Seteth to the Goddess Tower, and she would have to hope the reasons for their flowered afflictions were intertwined.


End file.
